The present invention relates generally to user interface methodologies for electronic devices, such as, but not limited to timepieces such as watches, and in particular, to an improved methodology for an electronic device that enables the displayability and inhibitability of modes and their functions from within a larger set of a plurality of modes, thus being able to more particularly and desirably customize the use and functionality of the electronic device.
Watches having a plurality of modes are well known and described in a multitude of issued patents, such as, but not limited to, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,783,773; 4,780,864; 5,555,226; and 4,283,784. The disclosures of such patents are incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
There continues to be a push towards incorporating more and more functionality into such electronic devices, such as providing more and more modes that a user may find useful and/or desirable. Aside from the common modes found in such electronic devices (e.g. time-of-day (TOD) mode, date (DATE) mode, chronograph (CHRONO) mode, alarm (ALARM) modes, countdown (TIMER) modes, and even alternate time zone (T2) modes), such devices are becoming more versatile. For example, heartrate monitors are being incorporated into wristwatches and therefore, additional modes such as heartrate (HR) modes where one can monitor his/her own heartrate during a workout are being provided. Still further, by developing a communication link with a GPS, the speed (SPEED) and distance (DIST) traveled of the user can be monitored in a SPEED mode and/or a DIST mode, for example, and can be displayed and recalled later during workout summaries. The technology to provide such functionality is well known and not relevant to the present invention.
To still better appreciate the scope and potential of the present invention, it should also be recognized that the foregoing is but just a few examples of functionality being provided in such electronic devices. Other available features put in such devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,737,246 (electronic wristwatch with water depth measuring capability); U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,058 (describing a “health watch” for digitally displaying a plurality of information, such as time, atmospheric temperature, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure); U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,295 (describing a miniature portable physiological parameter measuring system with interchangeable sensors); and U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,856 (describing a system for measuring the speed of a person while running or walking along a surface), and are only but a few examples. As therefore can be seen, the prior art generally recognizes that a timepiece, such as a wristwatch, can be provided with a plurality of modes, although not all of which need be (or usually can be) utilized or employed simultaneously.
All of these modes may be accessed in a number of ways, such as through the sequencing thereof using manually actuatable side and top pushers, and even more recently by the use of a rotating stem and/or top ring, as more particularly set forth in commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,146,010 and 6,203,190 as well as application Ser. No. 09/359,223, filed on Jul. 22, 1999, entitled “Setting Functions For A Multimode Timepiece” by G. Stotz, et al., the disclosures of which are all incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
As would be expected, watch designers and programmers are continuously striving for, constructing and/or designing such electronic devices, such as watches, to be more and more “user friendly” by providing a user with more and more available modes while at the same time attempting to permit the user to cycle through such modes more easily and conveniently.
A perceived deficiency in the prior art is not in the providing of users with more and more options (i.e. functionality and/or modes), but rather is in the potential information overload and frustration that such voluminous information availability causes. That is, what modes may be desirable for one user may be useless for another user. Still further, modes not being immediately utilized could advantageously be (at least temporality) hidden from view. For example, a user not currently under water may not need (or desire) to be required to scroll through the mode that displays water pressure, as suggested above. Similarly, a user not currently connected to a heartrate monitor (e.g. a chest strap) need not have (or want) to scroll through the HR mode, since it would be intuitively clear that there is no current workout in progress. As but another example, a user need not want to scroll through the SPEED and/or DIST mode when not operatively coupled to a GPS, since it could be assumed that the displayable data would either be “zero” or stale (i.e. old).
U.S. application Ser. No. 09/727,886, the disclosure of which is also incorporated by reference as if fully sets forth herein, discloses and claims significant advances in the art in the foregoing regard by providing methodologies and constructions for being able to manually disable and enable modes in such an electronic device. However, it is believed that yet further advances in the art are desirable. Specifically, it is desirable to provide methodologies and constructions that determine whether data in one or modes satisfies and/or fails to satisfy a specified condition, and depending thereon, being able to cause the mode to be displayable or inhibited from display, as the case may be, again, all in order to customize and improved the functionality of the electronic device.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an electronic device that can still be further customized and more particularly configured to a user's customized use thereof. The present invention achieves the aforementioned and below mentioned advantages.